In a continuing effort to improve the quality of shipping fruits, I, the inventor, typically hybridize a large number of peach, nectarine, plum, apricot, and cherry seedlings each year. I also grow a lesser number of open pollinated seeds of each of these fruits, usually to capture recessive traits. The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of nectarine tree, which has been denominated varietally as ‘MAJESTIC PEARL’.
During the spring of 1998 I gathered fruit from an unpatented nectarine tree in my experimental orchard located near Le Grand, Calif., in Merced County (San Joaquin Valley) that had been designated as “5P452”. This particular nectarine tree was itself a first generation cross using ‘Spring Bright’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 7,507) yellow flesh nectarine as the selected seed parent and an unnamed white flesh nectarine (unpatented) as the selected pollen parent. The seeds from this fruit were removed, cracked, stratified, germinated, and grown as seedlings on their own root in my greenhouse as a group labeled “5P452 (OP)”. Upon reaching dormancy that fall I transplanted these seedlings to a cultivated area in the experimental orchard described above. During the fruit evaluation season of 2001 I selected the present variety as a single tree from the group of “5P452 (OP)” seedlings described above. Subsequent to origination of the present variety of nectarine tree, I asexually reproduced it by budding and grafting in the experimental orchard described above, and such reproduction of plant and fruit characteristics were true to the original plant in all respects. The reproduction of the variety included the use of ‘Nemaguard’ (unpatented) rootstock upon which the present variety was compatible and true to type.
The present variety is similar to its seed grandparent, ‘Spring Bright’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 7,507) nectarine by producing nectarines that are firm, globose in shape, and almost full red in skin color, but is quite distinct by producing fruit that is white instead of yellow in flesh color, sub-acidic instead of acidic in flavor, and by maturing about thirty days later.
The present variety is most similar to ‘Bright Pearl’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 9,359) nectarine by producing nectarines that are nearly globose in shape, firm in texture, white in flesh color, and mostly red in skin color, but is distinguished therefrom by being more productive, by requiring a lower amount of chilling, by having reniform instead of globose leaf glands, and by producing fruit that is larger in size.